Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

Maria Olímpia Vassão interviews the artist Alex Vallauri and, in her introductory remarks, comments on the graffiti that have flooded the city of São Paulo since the late 1970s. Vassão notes the anonymous nature of these works, the interference [...]

In order to write this article, the architect Valdir Arruda had to make an effort to understand the phenomena of graffiti, and street painting and writing, which were on the rise in São Paulo in the 1980s. The text reproduces passages from various [...]

This document, written by curator Rolando Castellón, introduces the exhibition, Aesthetics of Graffiti, held at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art between April and July 1978. The statement defines the scope of the show, suggesting that two [...]

In this exhibition essay, members of ADOBE LA (Architects and Designers Opening the Border Edge of Los Angeles) recount their work relating to the ongoing presence of Latinos in Los Angeles as consisting of two distinct trajectories: the [...]

In this essay, muralist Judy Baca details the development of the contemporary Chicano mural movement that began in the 1960s, focusing on Los Angeles as the site of some of the most prolific and innovative mural projects. Baca underscores the deep [...]

In this essay, Rocío Aranda-Alvarado discusses the work of the Chicano artist and former graffiti writer, Charles “Chaz” Bojorquez (b. 1949) by focusing on his painting, Placa/Roll Call (1980). Aranda-Alvarado examines Placa/Roll Call, an almost [...]

Artist, writer, and activist, Judy Baca analyzes the ideological function served by traditional forms of public art: monuments that commemorate dominant histories and confirm the power of the state and works that ultimately serve the interests of [...]

In this essay, Marcos Sánchez-Tranquilino maps out the differences and points of contact between murals linked to the Chicano Movement of the 1970s and graffiti by Mexican-American youth, specifically youth gang culture. For this essay he uses [...]

Alicia María González’s recount of the Chicano mural movement in Southern California sketches the social and political circumstances in the U.S. during the 1960s and ‘70s that generated the mural movement, as well as the ones that led to its [...]